"Leonard and Gertrude," Gertrude was in no haste to have the children "learn to read and write. But she took pains to teach them early how to speak; for, as she said, 'Of what use is it for a person to know how to read and write, if he cannot speak, since reading and writing are only an artificial sort of speech?'" Thus the aim of teaching children to speak was an important element in Pestalozzian object teaching. While there were many crudities in Pestalozzi's methods of language training, the following valuable points characterized the methods as developed by his more intelligent followers: (1) the child should have clear ideas to be expressed, these to be based on real experiences; (2) his vocabulary should be systematically enlarged in expressing these ideas; (3) he should be trained to keep in mind an increasing series of ideas and to express them in order.

Prussian language lessons described by Stowe and Mann. -Good examples of this training in expression based on observation are to be found in the reports on Prussian Pestalozzian schools. In that of Calvin E. Stowe (1839) a number of concrete cases are given in the form of descriptions of lessons which he observed in his travels in Prussia. One of these descriptions concerning children from six to eight years of age stated:

For six months or a year, the children are taught to study things, to use their own powers of observation, and speak with readiness and accuracy, before books are put into their hands at all. A few specimens will make the nature and utility of this mode of teaching obvious.

In a school in Berlin, a boy has assigned him for a lesson a description of the remarkable objects in certain directions from the school-house, which is situated in Little Cathedral street. He proceeds as follows:

"When I come out of the school-house into Little Cathedral street, and turn to the right, I soon pass on my left hand the Maria Place, the Gymnasium and the Anklam Gate. When I come out of Little Cathedral street" [etc.]. (8: 50.)

Horace Mann also described such lessons as he had observed them in Prussia (1843) and commented on their value

for training in speaking, at the same time contrasting with them in a very unfavorable light the mechanical methods which prevailed in American schools. He said :

Again, the method I have described necessarily leads to conversation, and conversation with an intelligent teacher secures several important objects. It communicates information. It brightens ideas before only dimly apprehended. It addresses itself to the various faculties of the mind, so that no one of them ever tires or is cloyed. It teaches the child to use language, to frame sentences, to select words which convey his whole meaning, to avoid those which convey either more or less than he intends to express; in fine, it teaches him to seek for thoughts upon a subject, and then to find appropriate language in which to clothe them. (8: 63.)

An American example of these Pestalozzian objectivelanguage methods, taken from the Oswego schools of 1862, is the following for children nine to ten years of age:

The children were to give any terms which may be used in describing a face, and the teacher wrote them on the board as mentioned. They gave pretty, homely, white, rosy, freckled, wrinkled, blushing, happy, bashful, sad, pale, cheerful, thin, sorrowful, sour, ugly.

When a sufficient number of words had been written upon the board, the teacher called up a pupil to mark each word that may be used to describe one face. The first pupil marked words making the following description: "Happy, thin, wrinkled, pleasant, pale, pretty, white, cheerful face” [etc.]. (9: 423.)

From object teaching to elementary science, to nature study. Systematizing object teaching. The object teaching described so far has been of a rather informal nature, the teacher utilizing the common objects in the children's immediate environment to enlarge their knowledge and train them in a command of language. In some cases, however, the object teaching was highly systematized, and collections of materials used in physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology were placed before the children, who were required to learn to describe them in scientific terms. This was characteristic of the Oswego lessons, as described by the investigating

committee in 1862. Systematic training for children from six to eight years of age was provided in assorting and naming colors of yarns and colored cards. In the next highest class (nine to ten years) children were taught the scientific nomenclature of colors, to classify them as primary, secondary, and tertiary. Older children were taught the sensory qualities of certain chemicals, as in the following lesson intended to teach children to distinguish acids from alkalies:

A class of boys and girls were arranged upon the stage so that they could observe the vials of liquids and solids upon the table in the center. ... The children were each given some cream of tartar to taste; they pronounced the taste sour. The name of the substance was written on the blackboard. Then they were given some sal soda to taste, and they said it tasted "bitter and burning." The name of this was written on another part of the board. The teacher then told the children that we called those substances which taste sour acids, and wrote the word acids over cream of tartar. She then told them that the name for those substances which have a "bitter, burning taste," is alkalies. This word was written over sal soda. Then the children were given some vinegar to taste, etc. (9: 415.)

These Oswego examples were considered by some to be lessons in elementary science because they used some of the materials of the natural sciences and introduced some scientific terms. But such instruction was ordinarily known as object teaching," the phrase "elementary science" coming into general use later, and "nature study" still later.

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As a consequence of the general attention attracted by the Oswego experiment, "object teaching" became the great topic of discussion at teachers' meetings during the sixties. The Proceedings of the National Teachers' Association for this decade show the same interest in object teaching as is manifested to-day (1912) in industrial education or variation of instruction to meet individual needs. The consideration of oral instruction was generally linked with object teaching, and the values and dangers of the various methods of oral instruction were argued pro and con.

From systematic object teaching to natural science. - As noted above, some teachers considered the systematized object lessons as lessons in elementary science. This idea was, to a certain extent, at the basis of the preparation of the original Mayo book of object lessons (1830), of which most later ones were imitations. Thus in the preface Mr. Mayo said of these lessons, "As they are intended to be preparatory to instruction in natural history, they gradually assume a more scientific character and thus a feeling of progress is sustained in the pupil's mind."

On the other hand, in some places, there was a definite feeling of transition when a change was made from object teaching to elementary science or natural science. The natural science was thought of as new subject matter, with which the old object-lesson method might be used.

Transition under Superintendent Harris in St. Louis, 1870. The transition from object teaching to elementary science, taught by oral methods, appears clearly in the development of the curriculum in the St. Louis schools about 1870. William T. Harris, later United States Commissioner of Education, was then superintendent in St. Louis, and his reports contain complete statements of the character and justification of his innovations. Although a conservative innovator, Superintendent Harris was thoroughly in touch with. European educational thought and practice, and under his management the St. Louis schools proved the practical possibilities and values of many innovations which other cities introduced many years later.

The transition mentioned above was concisely stated by Superintendent Harris in his report for 1870-1871 as follows:

For several years "object lessons" have been used to some extent by our teachers. Last year oral lessons in physiology were given in all the grades. Upon the adoption of the course of study in natural science these lessons have been confined to the hour given to that course and brought in as one of the means of giving zest and interest.

Scientific classifications and terminology emphasized. The difference between object teaching and natural science seemed to be in the degree of classification. Science was conceived as completely classified knowledge"; hence the important thing in instruction was to see that the children learned the classifications. The "syllabus of lessons in natural science" was most formidable, embracing almost everything in nature inorganic" (mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy) and "nature organic" (botany, zoölogy, physiology). The technical phrases of these sciences were to be introduced, though not so rapidly as to burden the pupils. Good types, or representative examples of the general classes, were to be studied. The objective method was ordered in these words:

Every lesson should be given in such a way as to draw out the perceptive powers of the pupil by leading him to reflect on what he sees or to analyze the object before him. It is at first thought strange although it is true that powers of observation are to be strengthened only by teaching the pupil to think upon what he sees.

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The course of study was arranged on the "spiral plan,” the pupil going over the same field three times during his school career. The following quotation from the outline of the course gives an idea of its formidable character:

NATURE INORGANIC

B. Physics (things considered abstractly as matter, force, and motion) I. Matter oral (3d, 5th, and 7th years).

1. Solids.

a. Mineral: (a) metals, (b) stones, (c) earths, glass, etc.

b. Vegetable.

c. Animal.

2. Liquids (nonelastic fluids).

a. Water, quicksilver, etc.

3. Gases (elastic fluids).

a. Air.

b. Steam and vapors.

c. Carbonic acid, hydrogen, etc.